Coast Guard works to overcome port inspection challenges

Coast Guard works to overcome port inspection challenges The U.S. Coast Guard is beginning to address the loss of expertise within programs responsible for conducting security inspections of domestic and international port facilities due to service policy that regularly rotates officers to new positions, Rear Adm. David Pekoske testified on Capitol Hill last Thursday.
   The sea service realizes it needs to stabilize the inspection teams and is considering increasing the number of civilian employees to help maintain continuity and institutional memory, Pekoske said, elaborating on comments made Sept. 19 by Commandant Thad Allen before the Propeller Club in Washington.
   A congressional directive last year to double the pace of foreign port inspections for verifying compliance with international security standards has created a need to hire and train more inspectors. Vessels that have called at ports in countries that don’t meet International Ship and Port State Facility code requirements are boarded at sea and may be subject to other restrictions, such as daylight-only transit or even denial of entry into U.S. waters.
   Allen said the sea service intends to “significantly increase” the number of civilian inspectors, investigators and port state control officer positions.
   The Coast Guard has a cadre of about 80 inspectors to check foreign ports. So far the Coast Guard has visited 109 countries and plans to complete evaluations in 29 more countries by March. The sea service plans to conduct follow-up assessments of all 140 trading partners every two years.
   It added 39 domestic security inspectors this year, bringing its total force to almost 390 personnel. The Coast Guard is required by the 2006 SAFE Port Act to conduct one regularly scheduled and one unannounced inspection of some 3,100 domestic maritime facilities, such as chemical plants and cargo terminals, to determine that they are following approved anti-terrorist security plans.
   Stephen Caldwell, director of maritime security and Coast Guard issues at the Government Accountability Office, reiterated previous findings that the normal schedule of transfers within the agency is undermining the effectiveness of port security inspections. And, he said, the domestic and international inspection programs face other unique challenges.
   Sovereignty issues have complicated access to some countries. Visits must be negotiated with host nations, which can limit the scope and time allowed for visits and preclude the Coast Guard teams from seeing locations that are not in compliance, Caldwell said. And some governments insist on visiting and assessing implementation of security standards at U.S. ports before reciprocating the favor. There is also resistance to hosting revalidations every two or three years.
   'Even if that was not an issue, it is hard to assess maritime security or an entire country based upon a relatively short visit to some individual ports,' Caldwell told the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.
   Some countries do not have the resources to upgrade access controls, fencing, lighting, communications and other systems for port security, he added.
   “Other than sharing best practices or providing presentations on security practices, the program does not currently have the resources to directly assist countries with in-depth training or technical assistance,” Caldwell said in a prepared statement. International port security program officials have sought help from the State Department, the Organization of American States and other international organizations to secure funding for training and assistance for the Dominican Republic and the Bahamas because those nations have hosted port security conferences. Going forward, program officials will study ways to include capacity building as a regular part of their mission, he said.
   The Coast Guard plans to prioritize the next round of foreign port visits based on risk, and has hired a contractor to develop a model for ranking countries on the level of corruption, terrorism and other factors, Caldwell said. Previously, the Coast Guard primarily assigned priority to foreign port visits based the volume of U.S. trade with a country.
   Customs and Border Protection already uses a similar risk-based approach to determine which countries and foreign facilities to audit for the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism cargo security program.
   On the domestic front, problems remain with the lack of uniformity among Coast Guard sectors for conducting random facility inspections, Caldwell said. Lacking central guidance, some inspectors, for example, used a telescope to observe security guards and other facility control measures while making unannounced visits as part of vehicle patrols, while other inspectors made surprise inspections at night. Coast Guard leaders have begun to issue more clear guidance on how to conduct random inspections, he noted.
   Pekoske added that international port inspection teams recently convened in Washington for a one-week conference where officials stressed the importance of uniformity in assessment reports.
   The GAO also recommended that the sea service improve its data on inspections and enforcement to identify strengths and weaknesses in the current security regime, as well as compare the results of scheduled and unannounced audits.
   So far, about one-third of the facilities visited were found to have minor deficiencies in areas such as failure to follow the approved plan for ensuring facility access control, record keeping or meeting facility security officer requirements.
   The GAO plans to publish full reports on the Coast Guard’s domestic maritime security oversight later this year and the international port security program in March.